It’s Easier To Blame Firearms Than Actually Work On Issues

Den­ver, Col­orado–When you hear a Demo­c­rat, espe­cial­ly an anti-gun Democ­rats, use the term “com­mon sense,” you know that you’re about to hear a pref­ace to yet anoth­er pro-gun con­trol pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tion. From Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to Sen­ate Democ­rats, “com­mon sense” is what’s attached to every one of their pro­pos­als that the Right has defeat­ed end­less­ly in their flawed cru­sade to gut our Sec­ond Amend­ment rights.

Not allow­ing ter­ror­ists buy guns; that’s com­mon sense. Right, until you find out that it will strip Amer­i­cans of their gun rights with­out due process under this flawed Bush-era anti-ter­ror pro­gram. Some peo­ple who advo­cate this egre­gious pol­i­cy (look­ing at you Geor­gia Rep. John Lewis) have been erro­neous­ly placed on the no-fly list—one of many secre­tive ter­ror­ist watch lists main­tained by the FBI.

Lim­it­ing mag­a­zine sizes, that’s com­mon sense. It’s win­dow dress­ing. Cal­i­for­nia has a lim­it on mag­a­zine sizes; Eliot Rodgers was still able to com­mit a heinous crime. Expand­ing back­ground checks is the main course of anti-gun pro­pos­als pushed by the left that offers the false nar­ra­tive that a) back­ground checks are full proof; and b) they can pre­vent mass shoot­ing. Ore­gon has a uni­ver­sal back­ground check law; it didn’t stop the mass shoot­ing at Umpqua Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. More­over, the num­ber of pri­vate sales con­duct­ed with­out a back­ground check is incred­i­bly small, and the vast major­i­ty of that num­ber is between fam­i­ly mem­bers, which are usu­al­ly exempt­ed under these laws. At least that was the case for the failed Manchin-Toomey bill that was debat­ed post-New­town. If so, then what’s the point of the law?

At the Red­State Gath­er­ing, con­trib­u­tor Bran­don Morse mod­er­at­ed a pan­el with Townhall’s own Kim­ber­ly Cor­ban and Stu­dents for Con­cealed Car­ry Anto­nia Okafor about ris­ing demo­graph­ic of new gun own­ers: women. The evi­dence is clear. Women are the next big things for the gun indus­try. They’re obtain­ing con­cealed car­ry per­mits at a rate twice of that for men between 2012–2016 and they’re flock­ing to firearms train­ing cours­es.

Cor­ban feels that if more women see how gun own­er­ship isn’t just for the guys (and how it’s become more main­stream for women), oth­ers might be more will­ing to ask ques­tions, take a course, and maybe become gun own­ers them­selves. As for the onslaught of anti-gun rhetoric and mean­ing­less pro-gun con­trol pro­pos­als lobbed by the Left, she added that it’s easy to pin the hatred that some­one has in their heart on an inan­i­mate object than dis­cuss ways to reform our men­tal health laws.

One area that gets women’s atten­tion towards gun own­er­ship is per­son­al pro­tec­tion, espe­cial­ly when it comes to sex­u­al assault. Cor­ban viewed it as a tool of empow­er­ment and an equal­iz­er in a self-defense sit­u­a­tion with a would-be rapist. Cor­ban her­self is a rape sur­vivor. Okafor agreed, though she added that it’s not the only tool. For Okafor, the bat­tle­field is slight­ly more fraught with dif­fi­cul­ty. Col­lege cam­pus­es are cesspools of pro­gres­sivism, and where an anti-gun sen­ti­ment is omnipresent. Nev­er­the­less, she and the 40,000+ mem­bers of Stu­dents for Con­cealed Car­ry con­tin­ue to expand Sec­ond Amend­ment rights to our col­lege cam­pus­es. After all, pro­vid­ing tools that help in self-defense sit­u­a­tions seems to be … com­mon sense.

Speak­ing more to the self-defense point, Okafor men­tioned that one of the best moments of her life was when she showed her moth­er how to defend her­self with a firearm. Last­ly, and some­thing to keep in mind to ask gun con­trol advo­cates, both women men­tioned how the Left is now tran­si­tion­ing from being pro-gun con­trol to being pro-gun safe­ty. The use of chil­dren to con­vey this point is per­va­sive.

“These groups who call them­selves for gun safe­ty. Show me a pam­phlet they’ve put out on gun stor­age,” said Okafor. Cor­ban piled on, say­ing what have they dis­trib­uted regard­ing clean­ing, stor­age, and the use of safes.

Over­all, the panel’s theme was clear: self-defense is a human right…for every­one.